No clear motive after victims were shot dead at home on street called 'murder mile' of Britain's gun crime epidemic are shot dead at home on street called 'murder mile'

By Terri Judd

15 September 2003

A seven-year-old girl and her father were shot and killed at a flat in north-west London yesterday. Police investigating the murders, in an area notorious for drug-related violence, said they were unsure about the motive for the attack.

Detectives were continuing to search for the girl's mother and have not ruled out the possibility that the two victims may have died in a domestic dispute. None of the family has been named.

The man, 41, and his daughter died in hospital shortly after they were found suffering from gunshot wounds at a flatin Harrow Road, Kensal Green.

The street has been called "murder mile" as a result of Yardie shootings linked to the Jamaican gangsters who control much of London's drug trade. The area has repeatedly been the subject of investigations by Scotland Yard's Operation Trident, a division dedicated to tackling black-on-black gun crime.

Detective Chief Inspector Richard Freeman said: "We have to keep an open mind as the inquiry is at a very early stage.Clearly this is a very serious incident, but undue speculation is unhelpful at this early stage.

"We have not ruled out any line of inquiry - crime, domestic, or any other motive. It is simply too early to say why this tragedy occurred."

Officers entered the two-room bedsit shortly after midnight yesterday after receiving reports of a disturbance from neighbours, including Saleha Shaikh, 36, who lives next door.

"Three times I heard what I thought was a woman or girl calling out," she said. "At first it was scared crying and afterwards it was from pain.

"I heard something thrown against the wall, like a heavy object and crying like someone was in danger. There was the sound of someone running up and down stairs and then it went quiet."

Police arrived within minutes at the ground-floor flat in a three-storey Victorian terraced house, where they found the man and his daughter mortally wounded.

"The ambulance man, poor man, was holding her really lovingly but her head was very limp. We kind of knew she was not alive. It was horrible," said one young woman, who did not wish to be identified.

Minutes later the girl's father was brought out on a stretcher with a heavily bandaged chest. Both were taken to different hospitals in west London where they later died from their injuries.

It is believed that shortly before the murder, the father had allowed someone "he welcomed and trusted" into the flat who proceeded to fire four bullets. "From the position of the bodies, it is quite possible the girl walked in and was caught in the cross-fire," a police source said.

The source added that the most probable motives for the shooting appeared to be either domestic or drugs related.

The death of such a young girl is bound to reignite the debate about Britain's increasingly pervasive gun culture. Since the start of the year, officers working for Operation Trident have investigated more than 100 shootings, including 11 murders, in the capital. A total of 94 firearms and more than 1,900 rounds of ammunition have been seized since January.

Demands for stricter gun controls have intensified this year in the wake of the shootings in Birmingham of Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17. The cousins died after being caught in a gun battle between rival gangs outside a New Year party in the Aston area of the city.

Yesterday, neighbours said that the "pleasant" little Afro-Caribbean girl had spentweekends with her father in the housing association flat. One woman, who was too afraid to give her name, said: "There were a lot of comings and going in the middle of the night. I think it was because of drugs."

Another neighbour, Kenneth Thorpe, 20, said: "It was a probation hostel for people who have just been released from prison. There is a lot of trouble there. There is always police going there."

Local people described the father as a big man with short dreadlocks and a "big gold watch" who spoke with a Jamaican patois. There had been many complaints about him parking his car on the pavement since he moved in four months ago.

Police officers cordoned off the street yesterday while they, carried out fingertip searches, looked through nearby gardens and rubbish bins and conducted house-to-house inquiries as part of the double murder investigation. Half a dozen witnesses were also being questioned and post-mortem examinations were performed on the victims.

A local resident, Jonathan Davis, 30, an IT operations manager, said: "They call this murder mile. This area quite frequently has police around it and I think there is a lot of crime but it doesn't touch most of the residents. It is very unusual for a family to be affected."

Mrs Shaikh added: "My children find it really scary. They are saying, 'mum, mum can't we move?' I would like to move as well."

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StLGlocker

September 15, 2003, 02:30 PM

Pass a bunch more gun laws, that'll make those gang-bangers stop. They care about all they laws they're already breaking. :rolleyes:

RobW

September 15, 2003, 02:31 PM

This is a made up report. It is impossible! No guns allowed in UK!

It's a peaceful place since the rulers unarmed their subjects.

Henry Bowman

September 15, 2003, 02:39 PM

Baaaaaaaaa . . . :barf:

Zedicus

September 15, 2003, 02:50 PM

i'd heard some about this on the news, but I missed all but 15-20 seconds of it.

MagKnightX

September 15, 2003, 03:15 PM

Okay. So guns are banned except for long guns which must be locked up at the local LE office, except for hunting or trap or skeet, right? And those must not be repeaters, right? Only single-shot? So, it would be impossible to legally get access to a handgun, which is what was used in the shooting, right? So, because the shooter committed an illegal act with an illegal weapon that was not legally stored, they want to remove what little firearms rights the law-abiding subjects have? The new gun controls would be based on something that had NOTHING TO DO with the gun used in the shooting?

Surprise, surprise. I don't even want to VISIT Barmy Britain anymore.

TheEgg

September 15, 2003, 03:51 PM

A few of questions for our British members:

carried out fingertip searches

Q: Is this Brit for looking for fingerprints?

housing association flat

Q: Is this what we call over here "public housing" (means tax payer payed/or subsidized)?

The street has been called "murder mile" as a result of Yardie shootings linked to the Jamaican gangsters who control much of London's drug trade. The area has repeatedly been the subject of investigations by Scotland Yard's Operation Trident, a division dedicated to tackling black-on-black gun crime.

I liked the "Afro-Carribean" ethnicity. Are we going to have to start listing every place our ancestors have ever lived?

I guess I am a Danish-German-English-Gaul-African-American. I can put Africa down because we all started out there, right?

Ukraine Train

September 15, 2003, 04:39 PM

I can put Africa down because we all started out there, right?

Depends who you ask:D

I can't believe how narrow minded their logic is over there. How do you get through to people like this?

Nightcrawler

September 15, 2003, 04:41 PM

So, what do they want? They've already banned handguns, yes? Are they going to make them duodecuple-super-secret illegal now? Where you get beheaded for even thinking about a gun?

Standing Wolf

September 15, 2003, 09:05 PM

The death of such a young girl is bound to reignite the debate about Britain's increasingly pervasive gun culture.

Wrong. It's a crime culture.

Mr. Bombastic

September 15, 2003, 09:54 PM

Ban them again. Problem solved.

10-Ring

September 15, 2003, 09:58 PM

One look at Sweden & you can tell gun control doesn't work! The Swedes couldn't even protect one of their own! :rolleyes: How reactionary can they really be?:banghead:

another okie

September 15, 2003, 09:58 PM

A housing estate is indeed public housing, and a Yardie is a member of a Jamaican gang. I don't know what a fingertip search is. Probably fingerprints, though it sounds like something they do in Israel after a suicide bombing.

Mk VII

September 16, 2003, 07:56 AM

fingertip searches are where they go over the street slowly feeling for debris.
'Housing Associations' are co-operative groups that get together to run (and in some cases build) housing projects on a not-for-profit basis. They are not necessarily publicly funded.
'Yardies' are violent gangmembers, immigrants from Jamaica where the term originated. They are frequently deported in such cases. A lot of black people have settled in the Harlesden/Kensal Green area of NW London

TheEgg

September 16, 2003, 10:19 AM

Mark VII --

Thanks for the replies -- it helps to understand the terminology.

What was the quote "America and England -- two countries divided by a common language"?:D

seeker_two

September 16, 2003, 10:54 AM

Demands for stricter gun controls have intensified this year...

What is there LEFT to control?.... :banghead:

Dain Bramage

September 16, 2003, 02:14 PM

Hey, where's Agricola?

He would tell us that we don't understand English law, and that it's a perfectly reasonable response to the situation. :rolleyes:

Gordon Fink

September 16, 2003, 04:28 PM

What is there LEFT to control?

The U.K. could surgically remove the thumbs from all its subjects.

~G. Fink

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